Ponfeigh!

Friend’s Family & Folklore

In the early 1940’s, not long after the end of prohibition, the founder of W.A. Merrill Sons and Company purchased fertile land and created an award-winning dairy farm. One day while updating the farmstead with a recently reclaimed barn one of Merrill’s miners made a sudden outburst. When he crested the hill and laid eyes on the hillsides and fertile valley, the Welsh immigrant named McDowell, screamed “Ponfeigh!”. The old entrepreneur loved this verbal admiration so much that the farm and future coal mines adorned this title which he thought meant “wonderful” or “awesome”.

Ponfeigh Smokeless Coal Company was a respected name, since 1898 and one of the largest employers in Somerset County until the crash of the mining industry in the 1980s. To the surprise of the old entrepreneur the farm had a small hidden hunting cabin on its wooded edge that he turned into a retreat for his business associates to enjoy their local rye libations out of the public eye. To get an invite to this drinking camp was an honor. 

Stag’s Water

Ponfeigh Farm is still a favorite place of many sportsman and their drinking companions from around the world. The original meaning of the word “Ponfeigh” was thought to die with McDowell, the old Welsh miner, but it was discovered to be the original name of a Welch mining town interspersed with beautiful farmland in Wales. The name of the town derived from a Welch word meaning “stag’s water” or “watering place of deer”. McDowell must have been reminded of his homeland. How ironic that one of the best deer hunting areas of Western Pennsylvania and one of the oldest hunting camps in the region was named “stags watering place.” Whether or not this foundation of meaning is a twist of fate, ironic, or serendipitous, Ponfeigh is place and meaning that sits deep in the tradition of the Western Pennsylvania and now one of the finest rye whiskeys in the world.